


dreaming of a white christmas

by brahe



Series: brahe's 2017 advent bingo [5]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Dad Steve, Father-Daughter Relationship, M/M, Mother-Son Relationship, New Jersey, Snow, Snow Day, ac2017, adventchallenge, all wrapped up, danny and steve just really love each other okay, danny's various siblings, home for the holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-10 17:00:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12916281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brahe/pseuds/brahe
Summary: Danny looks at Steve - beanie pulled down over his ears, nose and cheeks flushed red, snowflakes on his jacket, smile bigger than Danny's ever seen - and falls impossibly more in love with him.





	dreaming of a white christmas

**Author's Note:**

> this was gonna feature danny’s family way more, but finals are eating all my time, so the ending is a little abrupt, but when the advent’s over i might go back and add another chapter or something that features more of the williams family dynamic bc in my head they’re like my family, and i love getting to write that big, loud family love
> 
> today's prompt is "all wrapped up" which I realize now was probably supposed to be about presents? but instead it's steve and grace so whoops
> 
> literally this whole fic came from the line in the summary bc it just kinda came to me? so the rest of the fic is just me trying to work out a scenario for that to happen.
> 
> title from white christmas

"Look," Danny says, hands flat on Steve's desk. "I have Grace for the whole week of Christmas, and my mother has been calling me for months asking when we'd be coming to visit, so. We're going to New Jersey."

"Yeah, Danny, take the week. I'm sure we can hold down the fort while you're gone."

"No, you idiot. _We_. You and me and Grace. Grace never stops talking about you, and Ma's starting to wonder."

Steve raises an eyebrow. "Grace, huh?" 

Danny huffs and crosses his arms. "C'mon, babe. Wouldn't be the same without you."

Steve stands, pretends to think about it as he rounds the desk and stops in front of Danny.

"Well?" Danny prompts, and for half a second he actually starts to worry that Steve will say no.

"Yeah, I guess," Steve says. He only keeps the smile off his face for about two seconds.

Danny smiles too, and he looks so _glad_ that Steve agreed - Steve's face softens a little and he gives Danny a quick, chaste kiss.

"Just tell me when we leave," he says, and Danny kisses him again, a little less quick and a little less chaste.

 

Which is how they wind up on the East Coast for Christmas, the New Jersey winter already in full swing when the plane touches down. The snow in the city was maybe white once upon a time, but dirty and salt and city grime have turned it yellow and brown, shoved up into gutters and against buildings to keep the roads and sidewalks clear.

It’s certainly not a pretty city - Steve doubts he’ll ever understand Danny’s love for skyscrapers and cabs and blocks and blocks of buildings.

One of Danny’s sisters picks them up from the airport, and she’s jumping out of the car when she pulls up to the curb, bringing Danny into a huge bear hug and then Grace and then Steve, who just looks at Danny over Meredith's shoulder with a question on his face, and Danny laughs.

“C’mon, c’mon,” she says, helping throw their luggage in the back of her SUV. “Get in, Ma’s already got dinner going and she hasn’t shut up about you coming home _all week._ "

 

The car ride to the house is loud, Meredith catching Danny up on everything he’s missed since he left - they’re tossing around names Steve couldn’t hope to keep up with, and there’s so much laughter and talking over each other he’s not really sure how they’re even communicating. Meredith asks Grace how she likes Hawaii and how school’s going, and Steve has never heard the kid talk so much at one time. 

 

They pull up to the house about half an hour later, a white and brick traditional New England tucked away behind some trees and a small field of snow covered grass.

Meredith helps get the luggage out of the trunk, and then she and Grace are racing to the door, laughter loud and bright, and Steve can hear Grace's excited shout of "Grandma!" all the way from the driveway.

 

Danny's mother meets them at the door, directs them to the bedrooms on the second floor.

“We've got Grace in here,” she says about the first room, which has a bunk bed tucked in the corner and toys strewn about.

“And then you two are in here.”

Their room is large for a guest bedroom, queen size bed pushed up against one wall with a nightstand against the other side and a dresser on the opposite wall.

“Thanks, Ma,” Danny says, kissing his mother’s cheek, and she gives them both a smile.

“I’ll leave you to get ready,” she says, and they can hear her bring Grace back down the stairs with promises of cookies before dinner.

 

Danny throws himself on the bed and watches Steve unpack a few things.

“Think this’ll do?” Danny asks, and when Steve looks up at him, there’s a smirk on his face.

Steve sighs rather dramatically. “I don’t know,” he says, approaching the bed. “It’s not Hawaii…”

Once Steve’s close enough, Danny grabs him around the waist and brings him up against the side of the bed.

“But it’ll do,” Steve says, and Danny laughs when Steve lands above him on the bed, pinning him underneath.

 

Mrs. Williams ("Clara, please, dear") shoos them out of the kitchen once they come downstairs, so they end up in the dining room with the rest of the Williams clan. 

They're a step and a half through the doorway when Danny's assaulted by family members.

"Steve, this is Stella, a year younger than me. And this is her son Eric - Eric, this is Steve, he's a Navy SEAL, maybe you can get some life advice outta him and do something with yourself. You met Meredith at the airport, she's the baby - "

Meredith waves from her spot at the table, where Gracie's sitting on her lap, and Steve gives her a little half wave in return.

"And this lovely lady is Bridget, older than Meredith by a year and a half."

Bridget pulls Steve into a hug, too, and he hugs her back rather awkwardly, but she doesn't seem to care.

Danny points across the room. "That's Ted over there in the blue polo - wave, Ted - that's Bridget's husband, and this little nugget - " Danny pauses, takes a baby from Stella, "is their daughter Sophie, yes, aren't you adorable, jeez, Bridget, how old is she?"

"Six months," Bridget says, watching Danny and Sophie with a smile.

"Six whole months already, wow," Danny says, and he's lost to the world outside of the way Sophie's latched onto his finger, her little hand wrapped around it.

"Babe, c'mere," Danny says to Steve over his shoulder without really looking until Steve's right next to him, hand on the small of his back. He turns to Steve with one of the brightest smiles Steve's ever seen on him.

"You wanna hold her?" he asks, but he's already going to hand the baby over.

"I don't think..." Steve starts, taking half a step backwards.

Danny, as usual, talks right over him.

"I know you don't, you'll do fine. Just, here, keep her here and keep your hands like this."

Sophie looks at Steve appraisingly for a few seconds, before she lets her head fall onto his shoulder, face tucked into his neck. She's trying to hold onto all of his fingers with one hand mostly unsuccessfully, and Steve curls his hand around hers without really realizing what he's doing.

"You're a natural, babe," Danny tells him, and Steve jolts back into reality, looks at Danny with what he's sure is a wide-eyed, deer-in-headlights kind of look.

The rest of the room has settled back into their seats and conversations, and there's a little bubble around him and Danny and Danny's niece. Danny's smiling at him, something gentle and soft and not something Steve's really seen before, and it's doing funny things to his insides.

Danny leans into Steve on his tip toes to press a kiss to Sophie's forehead, and then one to Steve's cheek, and he's got one arm around Steve's waist and his other hand is on Steve's arm, and Steve kind of wants to stay in this moment forever. He leans over just a little and kisses Danny, chaste and lingering.

"Love you," Steve says, soft, hardly above a whisper, and Danny smiles, kisses him again, much shorter this time.

"I love you, too, babe."

 

Sophie ends up falling asleep on Steve's shoulder, so Danny sits him down between himself and Bridget, who takes maybe half a dozen pictures of her daughter before she's leaning across the table to talk to both Steve and Danny.

"So, tell me about Hawaii! Ma never tells us anything, and you never call me."

Danny's still in Steve's personal space, though now he's got a hand on his thigh and an arm across the table in front of him. "Well, it's hot, it's humid, it's full of sand and trees and criminals and lunatics like this one here," he says, jabbing a thumb in Steve's direction.

"Hey, Hawaii's great. There's mountains less than twenty minutes from the beach, and there's jungles all over middle of the island. Beaches are just about everywhere, and there's always dolphins or turtles in the water."

Bridget laughs. "Jeez, Danny, you make paradise sound miserable. When I come visit, I want Steve to give me the tour." 

Stella butts into the conversation then, leaning in across her sister. "What's this about visiting Danny? When do we leave!"

"I don't know if that's a good idea," Danny says, but Steve jumps on it.

"The fall is the best time to come," he says, and Danny's sisters light up. "The crowds are less and the weather is warm but not as hot as the summer. It can be rainy towards the end of the year, but there's always a chance of rain."

"Thanksgiving next year we're coming to visit," Stella says, already decided, and Danny huffs a _fine_ , but he can't quite keep the smile off his face.

 

By the time they make it upstairs for bed that night, it's sometime after eleven and Steve's exhausted. Danny is, too, but he’s happier than Steve thinks he’s ever seen him.

Danny falls onto the bed with a contented sigh, props his head up on his hand to watch Steve move around the room.

“You don’t actually have to agree to letting my family come for Thanksgiving,” Danny tells him. Steve looks up, smiles.

“I know.”

“I just want you to know what you’re getting yourself into, you know? Yes, you agreed to come here for a few days, but it’s different when they’re all over your house, and they have _no_  concept of personal space _at all_ \- "

Steve grabs Danny’s face, holds it between his hands.

“I _know_ ,” he says again, and Danny stops, looks at him for a small eternity, and then he’s pulling Steve onto the bed with him. They’re laying on their sides, face to face, knees pressed together, Steve’s hands on Danny’s neck and Danny’s on Steve’s arms.

“It’s just been hard since Matty’s gone, and I didn’t come home last year because I couldn’t deal with it, which was selfish, but they’ve always…I’m the oldest, you know? And it’s…hard.”

Steve kisses him. “I promise I don’t mind having them out for Thanksgiving,” he says, and Danny laughs, rolls over and tugs Steve’s arm around his waist.

“I’m glad you agreed to come,” he says. Steve smiles, presses his face to the back of Danny’s neck.

“No where else I’d rather be.”

 

It must be sometime around 8 in the morning based on the way the sun comes through the window when Steve wakes up.

“Daddy! Uncle Steve! Get up get up!”

That’s Grace, up on their bed, bouncing on her knees by their feet. Steve rooms over a little, rubs at his face.

“Morning, Gracie,” Steve says, rough with sleep, and he sees the giant grin he gets in return out of the corner of his eye when he squints down the bed at her, has half a second to brace for impact before Grace launches herself towards him, landing on his chest and knocking the air out of his lungs.

“Oh, jeez, Gracie, give me some warning next time,” he says, wrapping an arm around her back to keep her from toppling over as he sits up. “What’s up?”

“It _snowed_!” she says, and that’s what finally gets Danny out of the half-asleep limbo he’d been in.

“What’s going on?” he mumbles, rolls over to see Grace perched on Steve’s lap, already dressed for the day. “Hey, monkey."

“There’s _snow_  outside, but Grandma says I can’t go play until you’re awake so get up!”

“Okay, okay,” Danny says, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He stands, walks around to Steve’s side, picking Grace up as he goes. “I’m up, I’m up.”

 

Sure enough, everything outside is covered with at least six inches of snow. Grace hasn’t stopped bouncing, and once Danny and Steve are dressed and downstairs, she’s tugging on Steve to get him outside.

Danny watches them in the yard from the window in the kitchen as he makes himself a cup of coffee. His mother is in the kitchen, too, a batch of muffins just put in the oven.

“You’re up early,” she tells him, laughing. “Earlier than I’ve ever seen you.”

Danny hums, pours creamer into his coffee. “Grace is very excited about the snow.”

Clara alternates between watching her son and watching her granddaughter outside. She’s got Steve helping her roll snowballs to make a snowman, directing him this way and that like they’ve done this a million times.

Danny must see something on her face. “There’s a beach behind Steve’s house,” he says. “Steve’s a ridiculously early riser, so he takes Gracie out on the mornings she’s there and they play in the sand or in the waves until I have a cup of coffee and bring breakfast out.”

He’s got a soft smile as he watches out the window.

“I’m happy you’ve found that again,” she says. Danny stays quiet for a while, and she doesn’t think he’ll answer, until he turns to look at her, shakes his head just a little.

“Not again,” he says. “This is a first. This is… I don’t know what this is. Yes, I loved Rachel, still do, but _this_ , with Steve, is just so different. It’s…he’s it for me, Ma.”

Clara smiles at him, pulls him into a side hug and kisses his temple, then pushes him out of the way so she can get to the oven.

“He seems nice,” she says. “Tall, dark, and handsome - I’m starting to think you have a type.”

“Ma!”

“I’m just saying,” she shrugs, setting the timer for a few more minutes. “He gets on well with Gracie.”

Danny looks back out the window at that, catches the moment Grace lugs a snowball right into Steve’s chest, smiles as the surprised grin it gets out of him. “So well,” Danny agrees. “You know one of the first things he ever did for me was get Gracie and I a hotel room for a weekend at one of those swim-with-dolphins resorts she loves.”

“He doesn’t seem half as bad as you make him sound over the phone,” Clara says, raising an eyebrow.

“That’s only because we’re not a work,” Danny huffs, but Clara can tell the annoyance is more fond than anything. “As soon as there’s a criminal to catch, he’s stealing my car, throwing grenades, shooting without backup, driving at least twice the speed limit…”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Clara says, chuckling.

The timer goes off for the muffins, then, and Steve and Grace come tumbling back in the house. Grace’s jacket is covered with bits of snow, and her jeans are probably soaked through at this point. Her face is red from the cold, and she’s grinning up at Steve, who spins her around before setting her down on the ground, helping her get her wet shoes off before she tracks water all over the hardwoods.

Grace runs for the muffins as soon as she’s free, and Danny looks at Steve - beanie pulled down over his ears, nose and cheeks flushed red, snowflakes on his jacket, smile bigger than Danny's ever seen - and falls impossibly more in love with him.

Steve catches Danny’s eye, slips his boots off before making his way over, crowding Danny against the counter while pretending to reach for something behind him.

“Good morning,” he says, and the smile on his face is really going to kill Danny, honestly.

“Good morning to you, too,” Danny says, definitely does _not_  push up onto his tip toes to kiss Steve. The tip of his nose is ice cold where it presses into Danny’s cheek, and when he slips his fingertips under the hem of Danny’s shirt, they’re even colder.

Danny bites down an exclamation, pushes Steve’s hands away.

“No, Jesus, you’re freezing,” he says, and Steve pretends to pout when Danny shimmies out from between his arms. “Take this,” Danny tells him, handing over a warm mug of cocoa. The warmth from the cup immediately begins to seep into Steve’s hands, and he smiles at Danny over the mountain of marshmallows. Danny rolls his eyes.

“I can’t believe you eat that many marshmallows,” Danny says. “You won’t eat malasadas or cocoa puffs or half the other things normal people eat, but of course, marshmallows.”

“C’mon, Danny,” Steve says. “Marshmallows are delicious.”

“Yeah, Danno,” Grace adds, and Danny looks to her to see she’s got her own hot chocolate just as loaded with marshmallows.

“Oh, great,” Danny says, throwing his hands up. “First pineapples, now marshmallows. At least she appreciates good Italian food.”

Steve immediately frowns. “It was one time!” he says, and Danny shakes his head, jabs at his chest.

“Once was enough. Now be quiet and eat this,” he says, handing over a small plate of muffins.

Steve sits at the table next to Grace, the muffins between them.

“We’ll convince him,” she tells him, plucking some of the marshmallows out of her cocoa. “He agreed to the surfing lessons eventually.”

Steve laughs, throws an arm over the back of Grace’s chair and grins at Danny.

“Mission accepted,” he agrees.


End file.
